Daming pirates

The artillery work shed was built earlier than Yu Xiaotian requested, and the blacksmith Lei was completely frightened this time. After leaving Yu Xiaotian, he didn't dare to mess around again, as if it was wound up.

Usually, Li Gouzi is first asked to make a bunch of lists, and then seven or eight people are asked to do it.

Among the thieves, two people were captured from Hun Jianglong. After knowing that they could forge iron, they were put on the shore as reserve talents to work. This time they were assigned to Blacksmith Lei.

Blacksmith Zhang assigned an apprentice to Blacksmith Lei to be his assistant, and in this way, the frame of Pao Zuo was set up first.

As soon as the manpower was in place, Blacksmith Lei led these people to build an iron furnace in the cannon factory. The iron furnace used for casting cannons was much larger than that used by ordinary blacksmiths. It was necessary to ensure that a sufficient amount of molten iron could be melted at one time.

A cannon must be cast into shape, otherwise it will not be cast into a qualified cannon.

Therefore, building such a furnace is something that a blacksmith who can cast cannons must be able to do. Blacksmiths have their own skills in this area and keep them secret from each other. It is difficult for ordinary people to learn their skills.

For this artillery work, Yu Xiaotian paid great attention to it. He took some time to go to the artillery work site almost every day to check the progress, which forced Blacksmith Lei not to dare to slack off a little bit. He led his people here from

Busy from morning to night.

Although this guy's character is not that good, his craftsmanship is still good. When he really works hard, he works very hard and is quick, which makes Yu Xiaotian very satisfied.

However, Yu Xiaotian didn't praise him just because of this, because he knew that such a person shouldn't be praised. Once he was given a good look, such a person would immediately slap his nose in his face, so it was better to make him nervous.

.

When building the iron furnace, although Yu Xiaotian couldn't help much, he did know something about it. Melting iron requires a very high temperature, and the furnace temperature must reach more than 1,500 degrees to melt pig iron.

, with current technology, it is not easy to achieve such a furnace temperature.

One way to effectively increase the furnace temperature is to find a way to inlet the air. First, heat the air temperature at the air inlet. The higher the temperature of the air entering the furnace, the higher the furnace temperature will be.

So after hearing Blacksmith Lei's introduction to the iron melting furnace, Yu Xiaotian immediately proposed to build an air preheating furnace or regenerative furnace in front of the air inlet of the iron melting furnace, and blow air into the regenerative furnace through the wind box.

Heating, and then entering the iron melting furnace, this can greatly increase the furnace temperature of the iron melting furnace, allowing the temperature of the iron furnace to reach the required temperature faster.

After listening to Yu Xiaotian's suggestion, Blacksmith Lei was a little hesitant and didn't believe that Yu Xiaotian said the method would work. However, he didn't dare to say it wouldn't work, so he agreed to try it.

This guy is considered a smart man. After thinking about it for a while, Yu Xiaotian made some careful suggestions, and he knew what to do.

So the man asked for help and added a furnace in front of the furnace to specifically heat the passing wind. In this way, a new type of furnace was built.

As for the fuel for the stove, Blacksmith Lei requested that coal not be used. Although coal is also produced in Longyan, Fujian, and it is not difficult for Nanri Island to purchase coal, Blacksmith Lei requested that only charcoal be used as fuel.

After Yu Xiaotian thought about it for a while, he understood the reason, because people in this era did not know much about the sulfur contained in coal, and sulfur would reduce the quality of iron, but they also discovered that the quality of iron made from coal is not as good as that of iron.

The quality of iron produced from charcoal is good. Guangdong is short of coal, so charcoal is basically used for iron making.

As a result, this also resulted in the quality of iron in Guangdong being far better than the quality of iron in other places during the Ming Dynasty. Therefore, the quality of iron cannons cast in Guangdong was naturally higher than that of iron cannons cast in the north.

Much higher.

This is also the key reason why after the imperial court had trouble in the north, it would send people to Guangdong to purchase iron cannons cast in Guangdong and transport them to the north for use. However, the quality of the iron cannons cast in the north was never as good as the quality of the iron cannons cast in Guangdong.

Right on top of this.

So after Yu Xiaotian figured it out, he immediately nodded and agreed to Blacksmith Lei's request, and asked someone to notify Li Yi and several businessmen who had set up a store on Nanri Island to ask them to find a way to purchase good quality goods for Sea Wolf.

charcoal.

Anyway, charcoal is not a rare thing. In addition to being used for making iron, it is also indispensable for making gunpowder.

And compared to coal, charcoal is easier to obtain nearby and easier to transport, and the price is not necessarily higher than coal.

So with the help of merchants, several boats of good charcoal were immediately sent to Nanri Island, which became the fuel for the next step of smelting iron.

With the hard work of Lei Blacksmiths, the new cannon was quickly erected. In addition, with the help of the carpenters, the hangers and other items used to cast the cannon were also quickly built and installed.

In the iron work shed.

When everything was ready, Blacksmith Lei hurriedly started making the mold for the first cannon at the urging of Yu Xiaotian. In the past, Yu Xiaotian thought that casting a cannon was not a difficult task, but when he really let himself

When he started to cast the cannon, he discovered that things were not as simple as he thought.

Before opening the cannon mold, you must first determine the size of the cannon to be cast. After determining the size of the cannon, you must first make a positive mold from wood, and then use the positive mold to make a clay mold for casting the cannon.

After the clay mold is made, pouring cannot be carried out immediately. The gun mold must be completely dried in the shade or oven to ensure that there is no excess moisture in the gun mold.

If the clay mold is not dry enough and the gun is cast in a hurry, the moisture in the mud mold will vaporize, causing a large number of bubbles to appear in the cast iron of the gun body. Then the gun will definitely be a scrap. If it is used forcefully,

If so, there will only be one result, and that is the barrel explosion!

Whoever operates this cannon will be in trouble. If they don't die on the spot, they will at least be blown to pieces!

Moreover, this clay mold casting method not only requires high craftsman skills, but also relies on the experience of the craftsmen in many cases. Every time the cannon mold is produced, the shape cannot be unified, and each cannon is cast.

After that, it can be said that they are all unique works.

The craftsmen never communicated with each other, and they each pondered their own so-called secret methods, so that the artillery casting methods could not learn from each other, which greatly limited the progress of artillery development, and even regressed in history. There are historical data.

According to records, after the mid-Qing Dynasty, due to the continuous loss of artillery casting skills, the quality of artillery casting in the mid-Qing Dynasty could not even keep up with the quality of the late Ming Dynasty. The artillery became more and more stupid, and the quality became worse and worse, and the range and power were not as good as those of the late Ming Dynasty.

before.

The most important thing is that the inner diameter of the artillery cast by this method cannot be uniform, and the inner wall is difficult to make smooth, let alone the appearance of bubbles of varying sizes in the barrel.

This leaves a huge safety hazard for artillery users. At the same time, it is impossible to achieve a unified caliber of artillery shells, and it is also very troublesome to produce artillery shells.

Therefore, making a qualified cannon is by no means an easy task in this era. This matter cannot be rushed. Yu Xiaotian looked at the progress and couldn't help but look up to the sky and sigh.

Just when Yu Xiaotian was worried about casting cannons, he suddenly had an idea and thought of a person, that is, a man named Gong Zhenlin in the late Qing Dynasty.

He once inadvertently browsed about Gong Zhenlin on some websites. It can be said that this person has left a significant mark in the history of Chinese military science and technology, especially in the history of Chinese artillery development, which has to be mentioned.

one person.

Gong Zhenlin was an official in the late Qing Dynasty. During the Opium War, many forts along China's coast were destroyed by the British army. The Qing Dynasty urgently needed to purchase a large number of artillery to equip the coastal forts and arm its own ships.

So at that time, the Qing Dynasty ordered large quantities of various types of artillery from various places. As a result, due to the backward cannon-making technology and the rush to build, the quality of the cannons produced was very poor. It is said that the pores in some cannons were so big that they could hold a bowl of water.

extent.

Such a cannon explodes when ignited, and the chance of killing the enemy is far lower than the chance of killing one of your own people. Gong Zhenlin was appointed as the official supervising the manufacture of artillery. For this reason, he racked his brains and came up with an iron model.

He developed a new method of casting cannons and immediately promoted this method, which ultimately enabled the Qing Dynasty to obtain a large number of usable cannons in a short period of time.

Specifically, his method of casting iron cannons was not complicated. According to records at the time, he first divided the iron cannon into 4-7 sections according to its size and made a clay cannon. Then he made the iron mold according to the number of sections of the clay cannon.

Clay mold, each section of the clay mold is divided into two parts, and the inner surface is rotated to make the surface smooth and regular in shape, and then dried and ready for use. A prefabricated handle is placed in the clay mold, and it is integrated with the iron mold during pouring.

When turning the iron mold into a clay mold, first place the muzzle section upside down on a clay flat plate, fill one of the sections with mud, dry it, cover it with a clay flat plate, tighten the mold, and cast it.

The first section of the iron mold is one piece. Then remove the filler and cast the other piece of the iron mold in the same way. By pouring section by section, you can cast a complete set of iron molds with layers of mortises and tenons.

After obtaining a qualified iron mold, when using the iron mold to cast the iron cannon, first paint the inner surface of the mold with a paint made of fine rice husk ash and fine sand mud mixed with water, and then paint a second layer of paint prepared from extremely fine coal powder.

Apply the second layer of paint, then clamp the iron mold, bake it, assemble the mud core, and pour molten iron. After solidification, immediately take off the iron mold, and while the gun body is still red hot, remove the burrs and mud core to get the finished product.

As a result, the cannon casting process has become much simpler. The most important thing is that the iron mold used for casting the cannon is no longer a one-time use and can be used repeatedly, completely eliminating the time and process of making a clay mold first.

, which greatly saves the time spent on casting the cannon. At the same time, because the molten iron is poured into the iron cannon mold, it is heated evenly, and there will no longer be air holes and pores caused by water vapor in the cannon body. The quality of the cast cannon is greatly improved.

, basically ensuring that there will no longer be accidents in which the barrel explodes due to quality issues.

This is undoubtedly the best thing for artillery users. It can ensure the safety of the users, and at the same time it greatly boosts the morale of the users, so that they do not have to worry about whether their guns will explode next moment.

, so there is no need to deliberately reduce the loading of gunpowder for your own safety, resulting in a significant reduction in the range and power of the artillery.

Another very big advantage is that all the artillery cast from such a gun mold have uniform specifications, and the inner wall of the barrel is also very smooth, which saves a lot of polishing process of the barrel. Basically, it can be used after it is cast, even if

To polish the inner wall of the barrel, you only need to simply remove the burrs.

This also makes logistical supply much easier. When casting artillery shells, you can try to be as precise as possible. Anyway, the inner diameters of the gun bores are exactly the same. You don’t have to worry that the same shells can be loaded into some gun bores but not others.

Inside the breech of some cannons.

In short, the iron mold cannon casting method, as the ancients said, is "the cost of one labor is to reap the benefits of hundreds of labors, and the saving of labor is useless!"

(Good news! After discussing with the editor, the release time of this book has been postponed. Once there is news about the specific release time, I will notify you separately! Thank you brothers for your support! Special thanks to my friends in qshh 06 for the reward!)